


Five Plus One

by Doralice



Category: Almost Human
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, Frottage, M/M, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, UST
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-19 15:22:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1474648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doralice/pseuds/Doralice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times John surprises Dorian and one time it's Dorian that surprises John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [5+1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1240330) by [Doralice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doralice/pseuds/Doralice). 



> This is a translation from my original fanfiction. I must thank Idril_Earfalas who helped me to translate it - to be honest, she did all the work.  
> Please, note that english is not our native language, so it's almost certain you'll find some mistakes. We'll be very grateful if you'll report them to us.

_Fsssh-clack_ , the car door opens and John starts counting the seconds.

"You were flirting with him."

And here we are.

"You should probably have those sensors checked, tin can."

"My sensors work just fine and you were flirting with him."

How long till retirement? Too long. Way too much time.

He sighs: "No."

"Yes, John." Dorian insists. _The bastard_.

"C'mon, did you seen him?" he gives up, the damn toaester will never give him rest, "I mean, he was undressing me with his eyes." 

"So you _were_ flirting with him!" he says triumphant. 

"Well, he didn’t look half bad." admits John cautiously. 

"I’m sorry?" 

"You heard me the first time." he grunts.

A moment of silence. What a cruel illusion, since he knows Dorian will never let it go till he will learn every single infamous detail.

"So bad for Valerie." he tries, considering.

"Hey, I was just flirting, it's not like I wanted to marry him or something." 

"John, he was... well, a _he_."

"Yeah? Thank you for pointing that out. Really, I don’t know what I’d do without your support. Taxpayers money not wasted at all."

Sarcasm. Best way out of this. 

Maybe.

Why does he have to look at him in that way?

Why does he have to look at him _at all?_

"Look, I’m not blind, ok? I acknowledge beauty when I see it."

Silence. That kind of silence where he can hear Dorian's cybernetic circuits work frantically.

Now, if the damn bot could just avoid staring at him as intensely as much he’s processing. _Thank_ _you_.

"What now?" 

"Nothing." Dorian casts at him a Cheshire smile, "You’re just full of surprises, John." 

And it ends there, with that smile and the strange yearning it gives him. 


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank to all for the kudos, the comments and the advices! We (me and Idril) love you all!  
> Here the second chapter: we hope you will enjoy it as the previous.

“So, one to ten, how good looking do you think I am?”  
“The hell–”  
John should be used to this: Dorian does it all the time, asking dumb questions when he's least expecting them. The truth is he'll never stop being astonished by how that ridiculous brain works.  
“One to ten, John. How do you rate me? Come on, it’s not so hard.”  
Sure it's not. What's hard for John is to ignore him while he’s almost jumping on his sit, curious and excited. But he has to, for God’s sake, he just has to do it. This time, at least.  
“I’m driving, Dorian.” he answers resolute.  
“I can see that. But I hope you get that it’s actually possible to drive and talk at the same time. Extraordinary, isn't it? And I'll reveal you one more thing: that’s what we do every single day.”  
“Nah. You talk, I endure it.” he corrects him.  
“Don’t change the topic.”  
“I’m not changing the topic.” he snaps back, annoyed at having being caught, “This morning I just got up on the wrong side of the bed. Is it too much to ask not to be bothered?”  
“Oh, come on man, it’s just a question! One to ten, how much?”  
“I’m not going to answer that.” John states firmly.  
“Five? Six?” Dorian insists, no pity.  
Ignore him. Just ignore him.  
“Oooh, _that_ high then?” the bastard implies, “Seven, maybe?”  
John's grip on the steering wheel becomes tighter. He keeps his eyes on the road, red in the face.  
“ _Stop it. Now._ ”  
“My, my, John... I didn’t imagine you liked me that much!”  
“Listen, man,” he sighs tiredly, “They actually created that face” he point a finger at him “and put it on an entire series of androids. I guess the answer is quite obvious.”  
But Dorian doesn’t reply. He just waits, like he's expecting something more. He wants to hear John say it out loud, the fucker.  
“You _are_ good looking. You’re meant to be.”  
This is a good answer. Concise, simple, final. He cannot not be satisfied.  
“Ok, but how much? I mean–”  
Oh, for fuck's sake!  
“Nine.” he blurts awkwardly, “Definitely a nine.”  
“Oh.”  
 _Oh_. That’s it? _Oh_ and nothing more? Not even “thank you”?  
And then John looks at him. Just a glance. And if he wasn’t an android, if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s not made of skin and blood, if it wasn’t that he can’t do it – well, he'd say that Dorian's just blushed.


	3. Chapter 3

John hates stakeouts. Especially when they are out-of-town stakeouts.

Dorian and him have been there for three hours already. They ate (or John did, at least); listened to all the radio stations serving the area (two); solved every single crossword that the smartcar projected on its windshield while Dorian’s circuits kept scanning their surroundings; played word games and guessed dumb riddles. But nothing could save them from it, so it eventually came: boredom.

And if it was only that, John wouldn’t really care. The problem is that in John’s experience boredom always leads to trouble. And right now, with Dorian, these troubles could be really tragicomic.

“No way.” 

It’s not the first time John tries to put a stop to this turn of events and he’s uselessly hoping it’s the last.

“Please, John! It's not like I’m asking for something relevant.” 

And it’s also not the first time Dorian simply ignores his decision. But this time John won’t give up. This time it will be different. 

“No, of course, nothing relevant about it. – John goes for the ironic approach – You’re just planning to go happy hunting in my brain and enjoy my most private memories. Tell your circuits this is not gonna happen. _Ever_.”

“I’ve already explained to you how it works, John.” he says patiently, as if John was a dumb child, “You can choose the memory you want from your brain chip and I will experience only that recollection. Come on, just give me a memory you don’t care about.”

“There aren’t memories I don’t care about, Dorian.” he shakes his head. 

How can he not get it? These moments always reminds John that his partner isn’t human. And every time this concept gets more and more annoying as if it touched a part of himself that’s too sensitive about things like that. A new part, a part John hasn’t explored enough yet. 

“It’s my life.” John clarifies.

“Oh, come on, you know what I mean.” he grumbles, full of innuendo.

Yes, John understands what he means. And he would really, really like not to. He doesn’t know why it’s so important, but it is and he wish he didn’t feel so annoyed. It must have something to do with that part John doesn’t know how to read it yet. 

“Do you really think I’m that kind of guy?”

He’s gazing out of the window while he asks, trying to sound casual. 

“You’re not?” Dorian, too, is using a casual tone. And John wonders if he’s doing that on purpose, if he is as nervous as he is. And he also wonders why he’s wondering about this. What would it change? The damaged one is John, here, not Dorian.

“Once, maybe.” John admits, without even knowing why. 

“Good.” his voice is clean, neutral. Inscrutable. 

“I’m not proud of it.” and he needs to say it. As if he was afraid of what Dorian could think of him. 

“You don’t have to justify yourself with me, John.” 

And John should probably wonder how they got to this point, how it ended up with himself being absolved by his synthetic partner. But John is just feeling too embarrassed and confused right now and he starts talking fast, without thinking.

“It’s been four years since I kissed someone, Dorian, _four years_. And now you come and ask me to search through my own memories, to look at every kiss I’ve ever given and find one I wouldn’t feel ashamed to make you see. Do you realize I can’t, right? I can’t do something like that. It’d be like – remember that time you found out Rudy was ransacking your brain without telling you? That. I’m not saying it’s exactly the same but – Jesus, it comes close! And I simply –”

It’s frustrating. John knows Dorian understands what he’s trying to say, but it doesn’t mean he has really explained how exactly he feels. He’s never been good with this kind of things and bollocks, damn it. He breaths deeply, now, and his heart is dancing the samba in his chest. All these sounds resonate in the car and it’s a stupid mental image, because people can’t hear those things. People. DRNs actually can.

“Worth a shot.”

John’s not looking at him (not brave enough to) but he knows Dorian just shrugged. He knows him quite well, at this point. He could even guess the exact expression he’s sporting, he can see it in his mind as if he was looking at it. Must be that distant look worn by those nineteenth-century poets who eye at the moor with a melancholic gaze, waiting for tuberculosis to kill them. When he sees that look he can’t help but ask Dorian if everything is ok. And he’s always right, too, because no, nothing is ok when he’s wearing that face. 

These are the things that remind John that Dorian’s cybernetic soul is made to feel. He doesn’t know if he and him feel things in the same way, he could guess that no, they don’t, but who cares? Does it really matter that Dorian acts like a synthetic or says things only a synthetic could say, if he eventually experiences the same emotions a human being does? 

“Why don’t you just go out and find someone to kiss?” John bursts out, annoyed by all these thoughts and feelings. 

“John…”

At the sound of that controlled laughter, John turns around to look at him. 

“What?” he asks Dorian, scowling.

“I’m a DRN. A synthetic, a toaster, a tin can. – he’s listing those things with a pre-set voice that hurts John like nothing else, “Who would kiss me?”

“I would.”

Wait. What–

“Excuse me?”

Dorian looks at John and John looks at Dorian. And settled right in the space between them there are those stupid words, swallowing all the air from the car. John would just like to hacker Dorian’s brain and delete the partition that has memorized that sentence. But he can’t and being silent will not simply change what’s happened. It will just give Dorian more time to scan him. 

“I’m just saying…” and John’s voice croaks, “if hypothetically we weren’t colleagues and I had met you somewhere else, and, yes, just hypothetically – well, you know you’re not that bad looking, and I mean…” he swallows hard, “So, suppose that… if I found myself in the right situation with a guy like you, I could – if you wanted, I mean – I could do it. Kiss you. Hypothetically.”

“Hypothetically.”

“Yeah, hypothetically. Huh... what time is it? Stahl should be here already.” 

Dorian doesn’t comment on the obvious change of topic. For the time being, at least.


	4. Chapter 4

“So.”

Obvioulsy.

“ _Not. A. Word_.” says John in a low grumble.

“You said _Not a word in front of the others, Dorian_.” the DRN copies his partner voice's exactly, “And here there's no one but us.”

Damn that tin can and damn his overly efficent circuits.

“You'll drive me crazy!” John snaps back.

“Look at the bright side: I won't bother you anymore with that memory thing.”

John glares at him. He's _grinning_. If he really has the soul as he claims to have, he must have sold it to the devil.

“You know, you could have just  leave this case to Paul.” he suggests calmly.

John envies him so much! Sometimes he wishes he could just be a bloody synthetic himself, so i could relegate all those awkward feelings in a corner of his cybernetic brain and let the main program do all the work.

“Do I have to write you a list of the reasons why that would have been a fucking bad move or you can grasp them yourself?” John blurts.

“He is a competent detective.”

“He's a racist asshole.”

“That doesn't make him any less competent. Only an annoying dickhead.”

And John can't help but chocke a laugh.

“So I should have just let an annoying, dickhead, racist asshole kiss you?”

Oh God, he really sayd it out loud...

Alright, let's be honest, because it's not like if he doesn't admit it, it maigally disappears. It _did_ happen: John kiss him. He did it for an undercover mission, ok, but that doesn't changes the fact. He kissed his partner. He kissed _Dorian_.

And John can try to avoid to think about it, if he wants, like a teen skipping school to avoid a test, but he well know that it will not work.

“I'm a cop, John. And like every cop when a situation gets complicated I can't just drop off.”

Complicated. So that's it, for Dorian it's just _complicated_. John doesn't understand why he's trying to diminish the problem. So he tries to explain.

“Dorian, sometimes our work breaks professional boundaries and one finds himself doing things – dealing with stuff that... get into your head. This was one of those times. I wanted to give you the  less bad version. At last I try.”

And the award for the Most Pathetic Speech of the year goes to... John R. Kennex! Applause, thanks.

“However...”

Ah, yes. Go on, John. Make things worse.

“However?”

He takes a deep breath.

“Dunno. Maybe it didn't help much.”

“And whence does it spring this auspicious reflection?”

He frowned: “Did you eat a dictionary for breakfast?”

“Only a manual on cybernetics. And as usual you're avoiding the topic, John.”

Hit and sunk.

“We're collegues. Damn... we're _partners_ , Dorian. And it's assumed that partners protect each others.”

“That's what you did.”

He just doesn't get it, huh?

“I'm not talking about the case.”

“Neither do I. John, you didn't traumatized me. Indeed, you've _protected_ me pretty well.”

What the hell would that sentence imply?

“You're welcome.” says John with a questioning voice.

And _what the hell_ would that answer mean?!

“For what it's worth, I'm glad that it wasn't Paul.”

Well, ok. Now John is busy to remember how breathing works.

“For what it's worth, I'm glad it was me.” he manges to say, staring at the road ahead with a stupid smile.

Time for talks is over. They both decide to spend the rest of the drive in silence.

John has a lot to think about. Indeed, he's pretty sure he will be very busy to think about this whole thing. Perhaps it will take days – or weeks, or months. John knows he's a little slow with this stuff.

What he doesn't know is that events will put him in a hurry.


End file.
